


The World Apart

by eviscerates



Category: Snowpiercer (2013)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Gen, M/M, Mentioned past Edgar/Curtis, Referenced cannibalism, Referenced major violence, Slight Canon Divergence, Stream of Consciousness, there's a lot of death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-10
Updated: 2014-07-10
Packaged: 2018-02-08 06:58:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1931073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eviscerates/pseuds/eviscerates
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Curtis remembers when Grey was born. </p>
<p>No one would have missed him then - Either of them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The World Apart

**Author's Note:**

> The slight canon divergence here being they're only seen resting one night in the movie - I think it only takes two days to take the train? Pretend it took three, and they rested a second night.
> 
> I'm very bad at titles, and this one is from "End of All Time" by Stars of Track and Field, which you should listen to.

Curtis remembers when Grey was born.

It was after the... Mess with baby Edgar, a few months after. Long enough that the protein blocks had started coming, but not long enough that some of the more hungry people wouldn't balk at the idea of meal of baby no one would miss.

No one would have missed Grey.

His father, unknown. Dead, said his mother. No one questioned it. No one cared enough to. His mother, dead. Dead giving birth to him. He came early, too early, one of the women who used to deliver babies back on Earth said. He wouldn't live, she said. Nobody thought he would live.

He was the smallest baby Curtis had ever seen. He was skinny from the minute he came out, and he didn't cry. He remembers that more than anything. A baby, just born, that didn't cry. He wasn't expected to make it to morning. Hungry passengers circled the bundle of blankets that was Grey like wolves. He wasn't expected to last the night.

He lived. When they woke up the next morning, he was still there. His face was screwed up like he'd been crying, but he hadn't. Nobody heard anything. One of the older guys said he was retarded, his brain wasn't fully formed yet. Someone suggested they put him out of his misery. Curtis saw the shadow of a knife in his hand, felt the life of a young mother gasping out under his fingers.

He told them to leave it alone. It would probably die on its own, right? Right, they all said, shrugged, went about their business. They had better things to worry about than a single scrawny baby who wouldn't make it through the month with nobody to look after him. Nobody wanted that extra mouth to feed.

Gilliam took the baby after everyone walked away, he named him Grey. Curtis watched the gentle way he held him in his one arm and felt sick.

The baby surprised everyone by living. One month, six months, a year, three years, more. He was a scrawny thing, never made any noise. Never cried, never made weird baby sounds, never talked back to Gilliam when the old man told him stories. Curtis remembers Edgar (so young, uninterested in kids his age, sticking to Curtis like glue) asking why Gilliam didn't make him talk.

"He'll talk if he's got something to say," was all the old man said.

Grey grew up a shadow. He never bothered a soul, was unbothered by anyone. Didn't speak, didn't make a sound when he moved. Curtis suspected he knew places in the tail section nobody else did, hiding spots and whisper-quiet shadows where he could sit and wait and watch. He never asked him about it. Every time he looked at him he saw those passengers standing over a bundle of rags, teeth flashing like predators.

He always had to look away.

Their lives didn't intersect much after that. Grey was silent, ever-watchful, when Curtis sat at Gilliam's side, but never showed much interest in meeting his eyes. The writing on his body expanded and untold stories unfolded themselves across his skin in the form of ink, he grew taller, his hair wilder, his bones more angular. He didn't wear shirts; You could see his ribs. Curtis would have been concerned if he didn't have better things to do, if he didn't know Grey had knives up his sleeves and could snap a man's neck with a single twist of his skinny wrists.

When the revolt happens, Grey is not yet a man by Curtis' standards. He has forgotten what year he was born in, though he remembers when and how. He seems older than Edgar, though they couldn't be more than a year or two apart in age. He kills a prison guard waving a giant maul like he's the hero in a fairy story, and his eyes meet Curtis'.

Curtis looks away.

He makes a choice, and he doesn't choose Edgar. He doesn't see his face when the knife goes in, but Grey does. Curtis doesn't know he didn't expect it. He knows thay all expected him to run back, to fight for Edgar, to do _something_. He doesn't do anything, and Grey watches the light leave Edgar's eyes. He doesn't know Grey remembers their soft noises and entwined shadows he's heard and seen, late when everyone is sleeping.

Grey looks at Curtis, sees him with Mason, sees the choice he made.

Their eyes meet, and he doesn't know that Grey understands.

Curtis looks away.

Bright colors, gunfire, eggs, a note on red paper, a woman with Grey's knife in her throat. It is a blur for Curtis, and he doesn't remember it well. His mind is consumed with hatred, and he feels a little better once a bullet is in Mason's skull.

He pretended not to hear the noise Grey made when they shot Gilliam. It hurts less to pretend he didn't hear.

Lying in the emptied out classroom car, he wonders if Gilliam is wherever Edgar is. He doubts there's a heaven, but if there is one, Gilliam would be there. He remembers the gunshot and the noise that tore its way out of Grey's throat and his eyes meeting his, Curtis always looking away.

He doesn't know how long he lays there, staring at the ceiling, muscles tense against the rumbling floor of the train. There is no light from the windows but the sliver of moon on the ice when Grey finds his way across the floor to Curtis, and presses his body against his. Curtis figures he shouldn't open his arms, shouldn't let Grey bury his face in his neck, shouldn't count the knobs of his bare spine under his jacket with his fingers, but he does.

Grey's arms go around him, on the bloodstained floor of the classroom car, and he feels his own body start to crumble. He can't allow it, not even here, in the dark, entwined with a boy he remembers being born.

Grey shakes against him, like a leaf in a thunderstorm, and Curtis remembers how Gilliam was the only person on the train Grey ever showed any interest in.

Curtis is selfish and holds Grey's thin body closer against him, and remembers another body pressed against his, not long ago. But Grey is not Edgar and Edgar isn't here because Curtis made a choice. He holds Grey instead, tightly, as if they both would break, until they both stop shaking.

Holding him feels like a knife between the ribs.

The next day there is steam, and gunfire, and the sound of flesh hitting flesh. Curtis sees Grey dashing between the stalls and, ridiculously, thinks of when he was born. His head hits the ground, and he blacks out - His last waking thought of how small Grey looked in Gilliam's grasp, how small he felt in his own arms.

He doesn't remember Grey taking a knife through the hand that was meant for him, because he wasn't there to see it. He was somewhere else, dreaming of a childhood Grey never had.

He doesn't remember Grey pinned against a wall, a knife embedding through to his heart. He wakes up from the floor and Grey is there, but he isn't there. His eyes are empty and his thin body is slumped against the wall, and his eyes are empty and they are open.

He remembers thinking someone should shut his eyes.

He goes to do it, but he can't. His hand reaches out and he remembers when Grey was born and he fucking can't. Grey is dead and Edgar is dead and Tanya is dead and Grey died for him. They all died for him and all Curtis can think about is the day Grey was born.

When he loses his arm, all he can think about is how he hopes there's a heaven, and he hopes Edgar is in it and Tanya is in it and Grey is in it and it's warm there, and they never have to remember things that he remembers.

He remembers thinking how if there is a heaven, he won't end up there.

He thinks that he deserves it, going to the other place. It seems fitting for everyone that died for him to end up in a place he isn't.

Edgar's mouth against his, calling him hero, Grey's arms around him and the days they were both born and then the sound of metal on metal and scorching white light filling his vision and then -

He doesn't remember anything.


End file.
